


you’ve been so still

by natehsewell



Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Tenderness, also adam du mortain WOULD lose it over some slight over the clothes action, change my mind!, the detective can do both <3, yes i would like to see adam du mortain treated softly but also clowned a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:14:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27450304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natehsewell/pseuds/natehsewell
Summary: It isn’t any easier to breathe. She’s everywhere. He can taste her on the air when he inhales. “Did I hurt you?” She asks.Adam can’t help it. He laughs, a quiet noise that tears out of him in shock.
Relationships: Female Detective/Adam du Mortain
Comments: 10
Kudos: 61





	you’ve been so still

**Author's Note:**

> this was born out of my exceptional need to see adam treated with tenderness but also clowned a lil bit... and adam being horny on main but also, like, trying to deal with 900 yrs of not being horny on main..... this is just incredibly corny but also gentle, which is honestly the only way i know how to write. set pretty early on in the actual relationship part, although these idiots probably already exchanged i love you's before they even got together.. dramatic asses. completely unbeta'd. i closed my eyes and hit publish. thank u for ur time <3

She’s astride him, warm and weighted, and all Adam can think is, _this girl will be the death of me_ when she rocks her hips into his, grips the back of his neck.

Winona nips at his bottom lip, and he groans into the kiss, defeated before he ever really begun. And what a sweet defeat it is, as she slots her mouth against his chin, the sharp angle of his jaw, trailing downward. Instinctively, his neck arches back, offering her more room to explore. Something he knows means much more to him than it would to her. 

But Winona pauses regardless, neither pulling away nor drawing closer—and Adam almost growls, a fire building in his veins. Reaches up to tangle his fingers through her hair, to encourage her and drive his own descent into madness. “Is this okay?” She murmurs, her breath fanning out against the sensitive skin of his throat. 

Adam’s eyes slide shut, his head thumping the back of the wall. “Yes,” he replies, low, guttural, taken with want—and oh, he does want. Wants so much his hands shake, aching to touch and be touched, and such a thing has not happened in longer than he can remember. Her hands, her mouth; she undoes centuries of ironclad control in mere moments. 

She wastes no time after that, open-mouthed kisses trailing the path of his carotid artery. Too much. Not enough. 

She noses where his pulse is strongest, violent and racing, just for her. Pulls It between her teeth and bites down, sucking a mark onto his neck that will disappear in minutes, soothing away the sting with her tongue. Adam moans, aches, his pelvis jerking upward before he can control himself.

They gasp in tandem, Winona grinding down to meet him halfway, and he grasps her thighs in both hands, guiding her forward, against him. Friction. Heat. Her scent on the air—honey and hibiscus and rose—and she curses, or maybe he does, the sound half lost in the haze of her. 

The barriers between them are rough on his skin, and then she’s slipping her free palm underneath his shirt, pushing the fabric up, nails dragging lightly on the planes of his stomach, chest. How much time did he waste, denying himself this? Denying them both this? She rolls against him and there— _there_ , a heat building at the base of his spine, too much. _Too much._

“Stop—“ he groans, fingertips digging into her yielding flesh, stilling her. She’s rushing through his veins, invading every sense, taking up the entire world, and he can barely work his breathing under control. She moves back instantly, concern crushing her brow, taking root in the dark brown of her eyes, pupils still blown wide. Her thighs strain around his hips, pushing her weight up as she tries to climb off, and Adam lays a palm on the small of her back, keeping her near. 

“Are you okay?” Winona asks, voice raspy and soft. The hand at the back of his neck falls, coming to rest in her lap instead, and he almost grabs it, wants to pull her back, misses the contact as soon as it’s lost. 

It isn’t any easier to breathe. She’s everywhere. He can taste her on the air when he inhales. “Did I hurt you?” She asks.

Adam can’t help it. He laughs, a quiet noise that tears out of him in shock. _Did I hurt you?_ She asks, like she isn’t human, shockingly human, and he puts the hand not at her back to her cheek.

“What’s wrong?” Winona frowns, not unkindly. Her hand comes up to meet his, fingers curling loose around his wrist. 

She looks at him like he’s far more fragile than he is, than _she_ is, and it is an odd sort of thing, to be treated with such care.

It feels… safe. Something he has not truly enjoyed in many years. And the irony of a kind of safety being found in the shape of a human woman with fast smiles and a careless fire in her is not lost on him. 

“No, you didn’t hurt me.” Adam says after a moment, drawing his thumb against the curve of her cheek. He’s still smiling, he realizes, and she smiles too. Not one of her wry, crooked little grins, or her sharper smiles, all teeth, but a genuine one. Soft. Welcoming. A little hesitant.

“Okay, good.” Her other hand comes to rest on his shoulder, then slides to the nape of his neck. “Too fast?”

“It has been… a long time. Since I’ve done anything—” he pauses, working the words over in his head, “—of this nature. I apologize.”

“Don’t.” Winona leans forward, brushing her forehead against his. “It’s all good. We can take it slow. Whatever you need.”

His eyes slide shut as he leans into the touch, pressing their foreheads more surely against each other. At her waist, his grip tightens, and she responds in kind. “Thank you.” 

They remain like that for a few moments. The only sound to cut the silence is the drum of her heart, his heart, beating to the same rhythm. Winona breaks hers, leaning back just enough to look him in the eye. “Question.”

“Of course.” 

“So— ahem, how long… has it been… since,” she clears her throat. “Y’know.”

“You know?”

“Since you’ve, uhhh…” she gestures, vaguely, between them.

“Ah.” 

“I mean, if I can ask.”

“You can.” Adam says, hands sliding to settle at her waist. She shudders, arching lightly where his fingers graze the center of her back, and he can’t help a small smile at that. “Years.”

She tilts her head to the side. “Like, what, a decade?” 

“Longer.”

Her teeth sink into her flushed, well-kissed bottom lip. He follows the motion with his gaze, only looking back up when she exhales. “...A few decades?” 

“Much longer.” 

Minor shock crosses her face, all raised brows and worked jaw. “Huh…” she nods, as if to herself. “Well, shit.”

“Indeed.” He chuckles softly.

 _That_ expression crosses her face then. The one she wears when she isn’t quite sure how to proceed, what move to make next. It comes out most when the situation is tense, emotional and charged. He almost reaches out to smooth away the crease on her nose. She looks as though she’s chewing the words over in her head. Finally, though, she says, “can I ask why?”

“I suppose…” he does reach out then, fingertips tucking away a loose curl that’s settled in front of her face. “There was no one who— _inspired,_ those urges. For lack of a better word. I was content in my work, with the connections I had. And had no real need to seek out anything more.” A pause, and in a much softer voice, he adds: “until you.”

“Oh.” Winona hums, leaning her head into the touch as the back of his fingers card against her cheek once more. Her eyes slide shut, contented, and it is quite possibly one of the loveliest sights he’s seen in a very long time. When they open again, their depths glitter with some hidden joy, and she grins wryly. “So, I inspire urges in you?”

He sighs, flattening his face out into something he knows tries and fails to belay weariness. “Perhaps.” A dry statement, but he can’t help returning her gleeful little smile.

She bumps their noses, laughing. “Urges that no one else has inspired for—ahem— _many_ years?” 

“You’re mocking me.” He murmurs.

Winona teases a gasp, playing at offense. She wraps both arms around his neck, their chests pressing together. “Would I do that? To you? The love of my life?”

Adam valiantly ignores the warmth that spreads over his chest when she says that, even as it settles between his ribs, into his bones. He kisses her then, little more than a whisper. Their lips brush as he speaks. “You have. You do. Incessantly.”

“It’s how I show my love.” She says, smiling against his mouth.

“Then I should be flattered by your constant japes at my expense?”

Winona scoffs, even as she slides another kiss this time to his cheek. “You are literally the only person I know who would use the word _japes_.” She presses their faces together, and Adam curls his head against the bow of her shoulder, nose burying in her thick tresses. “But yeah.”

“Very well. I shall take it as it was intended.” 

Her laughter hums lowly against his ear, barely more than an exhale, and Adam rises then, tangling his fingers through locks of her hair, cradling her head. She follows willingly, arching into the motion, following the gentle push of his hand forward, nearer. She is precious, beloved, and when he captures her lips with his own, he pours the emotion he cannot speak, cannot name, into the kiss.

It’s a slow, sweet thing. The heat of before is gone, traded for a tenderness he eases into like a warm bath. Her arms around him. Her fingertips running through the short hair at the back of his neck. Her soft sighs, exhaled in the moments she must pull away to breathe. In those moments he chases her touch still, pressing his lips to where her jaw meets her neck. 

The kiss continues for a while longer, broken by interludes of her giggles, her murmured sweet nothings, and he follows her each time; a smile for a laugh, a touch for a touch. She tastes of black tea and those terrible pastries she adores, and it is delightful, he delights in it. 

When she pulls away—when he finally allows her to pull away—she hums breathlessly, cheeks stained like wine. Her head comes to rest on his chest, and he chuckles, wrapping both arms more tightly around her.

“I do want you to know,” she says after a moment, low and raspy and soft, “that there was totally a Twilight joke I could’ve made. That I didn’t. Even though it was hilarious.”

He gives a long-suffering sigh. “And is that how you show affection, too?”

“You got it.”

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to hmu on tumblr to talk about emotional support vampires @dumortainava


End file.
